


Sleepless

by RacheTanz



Category: Sam & Max
Genre: Angst, Angst to Fluff, Cuddling, Drabble, M/M, Shared Bed, big surprise ! (no not really), but like... not really? season 3 was weird, but theyll be alright in the end because theyve each other and thats all they need, by gays for gays, character death referenced, more season-3 centric angst from me, theyre both trying to work through the trauma and neither is very good at it, this is all v self indulgent idc dont @ me, this is v short for me. it's more like a vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-08 11:42:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18893938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RacheTanz/pseuds/RacheTanz
Summary: Max can't sleep, but Sam is pretty good comfort.





	Sleepless

**Author's Note:**

> probably pretty ooc but iont care i just need to get this idea out there ? i guess ?  
> im workin on larger fics this was just some side thing lol. enjoy !

For the tenth time that month, Max snaps awake in the middle of the night with a quiet yelp, stiff and full of adrenaline. Every blink evokes the image of bright crackling lightning and the sight of Sam’s cranium alarmingly empty again, no matter how much he shakes his head. His hands are oddly shaky and it feels like his ribcage is going to collapse and there’s an intense panicky feeling he hasn’t felt since reuniting with Sam. Speaking of Sam, a second thunderbolt of anxiety runs through him as he suddenly realizes that he can’t hear his partner’s snores and he stiffens again, ears perked and straining to hear something, anything… until a particularly loud snore tears through the air, and he breathes a sigh of relief. The sound of blood pounding in his ears probably just drowned it out earlier. He slowly drags himself up off the mattress, breathing heavily, and tugs at his ears, trying to calm down.

It was just a dream. Only a dream. Everything is okay.

He fluffs his pillow, shifts around in the sheets, and tries to settle back down. It’s hard to get comfortable again, somehow, even though nothing has changed (other than him being a little sweatier now), and even when he finally gets into a comfy position he finds himself counting the seconds between Sam’s snores and panicking all over again when he thinks too much time is passing—did he imagine everything? Is he actually alone? Was he just dreaming that he’d been reunited with his partner, all along? Has he well and truly lost his mind?—which is almost always interrupted by a particularly loud one, like a chainsaw starting up, equal parts grating and relieving. He can’t fall back asleep, no matter what he does; the constant up-and-down between panic and relief is driving him nuts and probably shortening his already-screwed lifespan if his heart rate is anything to go by. The sounds of Sam’s snoring are just faint enough that Max’s brain convinces itself that he was just imagining it all along, sending him into a little paranoid spiral every single time.

Eventually the frustration grows to be too much and he chucks his blanket off. Irritatingly, he’s still shaky and can’t breathe quite right, but he manages to slide down the ladder of their bunk bed and land relatively-quietly. Sam is sprawled on his mattress, mouth open, tongue flopped out, drooling on the mattress (as the pillow is trapped under an arm). He always looks so damned weird, like a dead body, which used to be funny… it’s not pleasant to think about in the light of his nightmares. Shaking it off, Max crawls onto the mattress, avoiding Sam’s feet, climbing carefully up towards his partner’s chest. He knows better, from experience, than to go anywhere near the dog’s head, lest he end up being used as a pillow and, consequently, drooled-on. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this; hell, two days ago, Sam woke him up by sitting up so fast he smacked his skull into the board between their bunks because he was _that_ terrified by a nightmare he was having, and they’d ended up together down here then too. Max still remembers how strange it felt to fall asleep in shaking arms (he’d been so incredibly sleepy that night he could barely keep his eyes open), but at least Sam seemed better by the morning.

Max manages to climb around Sam and settle down next to him without waking him up; draping one arm over his partner’s chest, he sighs, already starting to feel a helluva lot better. Sam isn’t going anywhere. He’s alive, and snoring, and Max presses against him, burying his head in the crook of Sam’s arm such that he can just barely hear a heartbeat. Sam shifts in his sleep and pulls Max a little closer; the lagomorph grins and shuts his eyes, nuzzling into the dog’s side.

He doesn’t have another nightmare that night.

They awake relatively early in the morning, Sam waking up first and his yawn moving Max (who had ended up mostly on top of him) enough to wake him up too (which Sam apologizes profusely for, even though he had no clue the lagomorph was there). Light gold sunlight streams in through the window—they’d been too lazy to properly shut the blinds last night—until Sam half-sits up and shuts their blinds all the way, then flops back down with a pleasant sigh. Max moves to get off of him, but one large paw comes down and pins him to Sam’s side like a stuffed toy. The lagomorph relaxes into it, pleasantly surprised. “Hey, Max...” Sam starts, gazing at the bunk above him.

Max tilts his head up to look at his partner and best friend. “Hey, what?”

“I think we should get rid of the bunk bed and get a, I dunno, a Double or something. A _one_ -story bed wider than this one.”

Max raises an eyebrow, a bit puzzled. “Why?”

“Well, we’re sharing this bed, anyways…for the third week in a row. We might as well, right?” Sam looks down at him and cracks a smile, shifting to lie on his side, facing Max. “To be honest, I kinda like this.”

Something about that brings a grin to Max’s face as well, and a sort of fluttery feeling in his chest. “Really?”

“Really.” He replies, patting Max on the head. “Provided you don’t strangle me in my sleep, that is.” And then he chuckles in that goofy way he always does, and Max’s fluttery feeling blossoms into a warm fire as he beams at his partner.

“You know I can’t promise that, Sam!” Max quips with a grin, impulsively reaching up to nudge Sam’s ear off his cheek, back behind his shoulder where it goes.

“I don’t expect you to,” he says warmly, resting his hand on Max’s head. He gently runs his thumb across his partner’s cheek, eliciting a strange tooth-grinding noise from him—that weird sort of purring that rabbits (sorry, _lagomorphs_ , in this case) do when they’re happy. It’s an unnerving sound to anyone other than Sam, who’s grown up hearing it from his best friend at all the best moments. “That’s awful cute, little buddy.”

“Shut up, Sam,” Max murmurs without a hint of annoyance, nuzzling into his hand, eyes closed. Sam gives his forehead a little kiss in response, grinning.


End file.
